... but what about the losers?

There is no denying that right to buy was and to some extent still is enormously popular. The right has been exercised by more than 2.5 million households and feted by politicians as a great stepping stone into asset accumulation and social advancement. We cannot deny its huge impact on UK housing and politics.

These are among the key points in Peter King’s housing policy book, in which he attempts to judge the policy on its own merit and plays down its impact on other tenures. But it cannot be separated from the effect of 2.5 million homes disappearing from stock of the social housing.

The conflicting duties for local authorities to allow irretrievable sales of their stock (usually their best properties) yet house people in need have never been properly reconciled. Arch critic John Prescott, when he was deputy prime minister and responsible for housing, put it more bluntly. ‘I inherited a total mess,’ he said.